by Radclyffe
They’d never met in person—in this kind of long-game, labyrinthine operation where the smallest breach could mean disaster, the fewer people who could identify one another, the better. Until an hour ago, she was just a voice to McElroy—her telephone voice that didn’t resemble her natural tone at all—and McElroy was just a black-and-white photo clipped in the PDF of her classified file. The file with half the lines redacted. The photo had been of McElroy in desert camo. She looked a lot different now, decked out in leather, her unruly dark hair scattered around a face that would’ve been called beautiful if the edges had been a little softer and her coal-black eyes a little less piercing. Handsome wasn’t quite right, either, but closer. Bold, brash, dangerous. In uniform she’d been imposing; in biker black she was tantalizing.
McElroy moved with the lethal kind of confidence that said she’d unhesitatingly use the weapon tucked into the right front pocket of the jacket that displayed the patch of the Renegades. The Renegades weren’t a Sunday-afternoon club filled with lawyers and accountants and other weekend warriors. They were all longtime bikers, many of them friends since young adulthood, almost all of them with records, and they’d been on the FBI’s and ATF’s radar for a dozen years or more. But their threat level, and consequently their interest level, had waned as more dangerous groups had slowly infiltrated the West Coast—Salvadoran gangs and Mexican cartels, and the right-wing paramilitary groups that were hotbeds for domestic terrorism. The low-level drug, gun-running, and porn rings associated with most of the biker clubs didn’t pose the kind of national security threat that the other groups did. So instead of arresting the bikers, they infiltrated them.
Sky pulled into the rambling, run-down motel complex where she’d taken a room late that afternoon. She’d signed in as Lisa Smith, the woman whose identity she’d assumed. Her orders, predictably vague, had been to tighten the leash on McElroy and be ready to escalate McElroy’s involvement with the militia at short notice. She didn’t know why, hadn’t been read in on the big picture, and wasn’t about to make that call from three thousand miles away. She wanted a closer look if she was sending her contact in deeper, and she was sick of flying a desk. She wanted a firsthand look. Her phone rang, and she slipped the smartphone from the right front pocket of her skintight jeans. She recognized the number, and she wasn’t in the mood for a tongue-lashing. At least, not the kind she knew was coming after her disappearing act.
She hadn’t made her way in the bureau by going through channels, but this time she was way outside the lines. But then, what were they going to do? Fire her? She smiled.
She unpacked the few articles of clothing she’d brought and slipped them into the rickety, chipped Goodwill dresser and sat on the bed to get rid of the god-awful high-heeled boots. Why anyone would choose to wear them was beyond her. She slid her feet into flip-flops, choosing not to look at the faded carpet too closely, and padded into the bathroom to turn on the shower. She was feeling just a little bit grimy. Maybe that had been more a result of the day’s activities than the long hours, but she chose not to think about that too carefully, either.
Chapter Three
Sky slept poorly and woke with her nerve endings vibrating beneath the surface of her skin. Trouble was coming, she could smell it. She had an uncanny knack for telling when an operation was heading south, just as she’d always had an inexplicable ability to tell when someone was lying, no matter how good they were at it. She’d honed the innate skill young, when learning to anticipate a blow from her father or a sly come-on from her older stepbrother had saved her from another assault. The trait had gotten her noticed when she was still a rookie agent, but it had been her ability to beat the polygraph that had gotten her fast-tracked into covert operations. She could regulate her biorhythms so completely she could fool the machines, repeatedly. She didn’t sweat, not if she didn’t want to.
She should have been a shoo-in for an undercover posting, and that’s what she’d wanted. To go in deep, create her own persona, write her own rules. But the psych profiles pointed in another direction—she was better suited to handle the undercover operatives than to be one. She was the best at talking operatives off the ledge when they’d been under too long. She could read the terror or remorse or desperation in their psyches and say just what they needed to hear to get them grounded again. She could analyze their panic without being touched by it. She was an empath without empathy, at least that’s what the psych evals said. She didn’t bother to argue. Hell, maybe it was even true.
But she’d never lost an operative, and that made her untouchable. Maybe she’d gone off the reservation a few times—like now—but the higher-ups gave her a lot of rope, and she hadn’t hanged herself yet.
Annoyed at the trickle of unrest scratching at the back of her mind, she threw off the thin covers and climbed out of bed. A shower would clear away the roaches in her head. No light filtered through the uneven slats of the dust-covered metal blinds. Her internal clock read 0630. Dawn came late in midwinter this far north.
A tap sounded on her door just as she was about to pull off the tank top she’d put on after her shower the night before. She dove for the gun in the suitcase she’d left open on the chair next to the bed and had it in her hand with the safety off in less than five seconds. No one knew where she was.
She eased toward the door, keeping away from the windows and turning sideways to present the smallest target if someone decided to pepper the door with rounds. She’d chained the door when she’d come in, but that wasn’t any kind of protection.
“Who is it?” Sky asked.
“Room service.”
“Good line, but not at this place. You’ve got the wrong room.”
“I don’t think so, Lisa.”
Sky braced her gun at shoulder level and put her hand on the knob. “You want to give me a clue?”
“Jerome’s VP verified your visit. Said he recommended you for the gig.”
“Then we’re all squared away, aren’t we.” She recognized Loren McElroy’s voice.
“Not exactly. He happened to mention you were one hot Chicana. Funny, you don’t look Hispanic to me.”
Shit. She’d expected someone to check on her, but she’d taken a chance that they wouldn’t discuss exactly what Lisa looked like. “He was probably thinking of someone else.”
“He was very specific—apparently he has…personal knowledge. Think you better let me in.”
Sky debated for about a second. Checkmate. She slipped the chain free and opened the door.
*
Cam’s cell phone rang while she was in the shower, and Blair picked it up to check the readout. She recognized the number and answered. “I thought you might take the day off—it’s Boxing Day. Lots of great sales at all the shops.”
Lucinda Washburn answered pleasantly. “The wheels of Washington never stop, even for fifty percent off.”
“That’s really a pity. You sure you don’t want a girls’ day out?”
Lucinda burst out laughing, a sound Blair hadn’t heard much in the last three and a half years. She’d missed it. “You know, Luce, Dad would be lost without you.”
“Your father is a resourceful man. He’s going to be fine.”
“I know that, but I’m not talking about President Powell. I’m talking about Dad. You have to take care of yourself, you know.”
The line was silent for a long time, and Blair wondered if she’d finally overstepped. Lucinda had been more patient with her than anyone in her life except Cam, and Lucinda had seen her at her worst. Hopefully her best too, but she wasn’t really sure. She wasn’t certain that anyone except Cam really saw what was best about her. She couldn’t go back and change the past. She couldn’t unwrite her wild, resentful youth or those times when she’d disregarded her own best judgment to assert her independence, placing herself at risk and putting those who loved her in the untenable position of making her even more unhappy in order to protect her. Those days, hopefully, were past, although she
knew she would never slip easily into line, never make the easy decisions about things that didn’t strike her as right. Her father’s and Cam’s safety were the two most important things in her life. “Look, Luce, if I’ve—”
“No,” Lucinda said softly. “You just caught me off guard.”
Blair laughed. “That’s not easy to do.”
“I’m not sure you’re right, though,” Luce said, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. Andrew Powell’s chief of staff was never uncertain. Everything that happened in the White House and far beyond was channeled through her. She was the president’s confidant, his buffer, some said his enforcer. She was the first one he came to for advice in a crisis or to discuss a new policy, and no one got through to him who didn’t first have to deal with her. But she was also a woman who had been Andrew Powell’s best friend his entire life, even more so since the untimely death of his wife.
“You know,” Blair said carefully, “he might be the president, but he’s also a man. And he’s been alone for a long time. Well, I don’t actually know that—nor do I want to,” she said quickly, “but you might think about what’s best for both of you sometimes.”
“I wish I had one-tenth of your courage.”
“It’s not courage.” Blair listened to the shower in the other room, thinking about Cam stepping out naked with water trickling over the smooth surface of her skin. Skin that was scarred in places from wounds that might’ve taken her away. Blair’s heart froze for an instant until she banished the memories and the fear. “Selfishness. I wanted her, and the world be damned.”
“Well, we can’t have the president be damned with an election coming up,” Luce said with a touch of the old steel returning to her voice. “And right now, our main concern is being sure that he’s safe while he’s out winning the minds and hearts of the people.”
“All right, you win for now. No Boxing Day, no candlelit dinners. So, what can we do for you?”
“Ah, I was actually calling Director Roberts.”
“Well lucky you, now you’ve got two of us.”
Lucinda sighed. “We need a strategy meeting. Say, nine o’clock?”
Blair glanced at the clock. Not quite seven a.m. “That should work. See you then.”
She ended the call and leaned across the bed to put the cell phone back on Cam’s night table.
“Who was that?” Cam asked, walking into the room as she toweled off her hair.
Blair pushed the sheet aside and rose, naked also. She took the towel from Cam and kissed her. “Lucinda.”
“Ah. What time?”
“Nine.”
Cam turned toward the adjoining dressing room, and Blair caught her hand. “You’re not dry yet. Stand still.”
Cam raised an eyebrow but obeyed. Blair finished drying Cam’s hair, then her chest and abdomen. She slipped behind her and drew the towel across her shoulders and down her back to the curve of her muscled ass. Tossing the towel into the bathroom, she wrapped her arms around Cam’s waist and kissed the back of her neck.
“Mmm. Morning,” Blair whispered, pressing her breasts to the warm skin of Cam’s back.
“Blair,” Cam said, “don’t forget Lucinda.”
“How could I?” Blair drew Cam back toward the bed. She sat on the edge, spun Cam to face her, and kissed the tight plane of her belly. “I don’t need a lot of time. But I do need you.”
Cam braced her hands on Blair’s shoulders and parted her legs. “I’m all yours.”
Blair kissed lower. “I know.”
Cam shuddered and closed her eyes.
Blair took her deeper, her awareness eclipsed by the scent and taste of her. Time was something she would never take for granted. Cameron was hers, and she would yield that to no one. Ever.
*
The plain white door to the motel room opened. The room beyond was shadowed, only a sliver of light leaking past a partially open door in the back corner—probably the bathroom. The redhead was just a dark outline, a slightly grayer silhouette in the gloom.
Loren stepped inside. “You don’t need the gun.”
“I guess we’ll find out.” The redhead, whose name was almost certainly not Lisa, motioned toward the single straight-backed wooden chair pushed into the corner next to the dresser. “Want to put your jacket over there and leave the gun in the pocket?”
“That hardly seems fair.”
“Who said anything about fair? I didn’t invite you.”
Loren shrugged out of her jacket and dropped it onto the seat of the chair, leaving her Glock inside. She didn’t like being without a weapon, but she wasn’t inclined to get into a shootout, nor could she afford to. Now was not the time to draw attention to herself, and leaving a body in a roadside motel was likely to get her looked at.
She turned back, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. The redhead looked even better without clothes than she had in them. She was still wearing the turquoise tank, but the jeans were gone, and her long legs were bare except for white bikini panties. Loren lifted both hands. “You’ve got the advantage. Want to lose the gun now?”
The redhead lowered the gun to her side. “What do you want?”
“Answers.”
The redhead laughed. “Those are rare commodities.”
Loren smiled. “I know.”
“Why don’t we trade?”
Loren shook her head. “I don’t think so. You’re the one here under false pretenses.”
“Really?”
“Where’s the real Lisa Smith?”
“Taking a little vacation.”
“You do know what Jerome will do to you when he finds out you’re here using one of his people as a cover.”
“I wasn’t planning on telling him. Are you?”
“I guess that depends.”
“On what?”
“On who you are and what you’re doing here.”
Sky weighed her options, which were slim to none. She hadn’t been sure the night before if the club had recording devices in the Ugly Rooster, and she couldn’t risk exposing her identity to Loren while they’d been sitting at the bar. She hadn’t even been sure she wasn’t going to just disappear into the night and continue to handle Loren from a distance. Now the decision was out of her hands.
“You haven’t been checking in on schedule.”
Loren, to her credit, didn’t react. She hadn’t survived undercover by being naïve or easily led. “I’m not following.”
Sky smiled. “Sure you are. I never required regular reports, but not taking my calls?” She shook her head, feigning a frown. “Missing your weekly check-ins? What did you think was going to happen?”
“I don’t know you.”
Sky put her Sig on the rickety nightstand next to the bed, reached for her jeans, and pulled them on. She lifted the small suitcase onto the bed, pushed the clothes aside, and triggered the hidden lock. A portion of one inner wall popped open and she extracted the cell phone. She tapped 1 on the speed dial. A second later, Loren looked down at her leg. Sky murmured, “Answer your phone, Loren.”
“Where’d you get my number?” Loren made no move to touch the phone she must have inside her leathers.
“Still don’t believe me?”
“Like I said, I don’t know you.”
Skylar held Loren’s gaze as she thumbed off the call. “Nobody does.”
Chapter Four
Lucinda had scheduled the meeting for a briefing room on the ground floor of the West Wing. Cam and Blair were the first to arrive. A coffee service with bagels, muffins, and assorted spreads sat on a sideboard. They helped themselves and sat down around the long table in the center of the room. A few minutes later, a door opened, and Tom Turner, the special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division, walked in alone. His intense brown eyes focused on Cam and held for a few seconds before he nodded to Blair. “With all due respect, Ms. Powell, this might be something better discussed alone with the director.”
“Why don’t
you sit down, Tom.” Cam gestured to a nearby chair. “I’m happy for Blair to stay. She’s been read in on all the details.”
Tom’s face contorted for a moment, an oddity for him. He was the epitome of calm in every situation and rarely showed any emotion, even in a crisis. Today, though, anger tinged his smooth dark features with an undertone of red. “I guess I’m the last one to know.”
“That was my call.” Cam had been expecting a confrontation after Tom had been excluded from the recent apprehension of a terrorist bent on assassinating the president—the man Tom was responsible for protecting. She suspected Lucinda had arranged for the three of them to have a few moments alone to sort things out. “By now, you’ve probably read the after-action report and can understand why you were out of the loop.”
Tom remained standing, but his voice was calm. “I understand that one of the principal subjects under suspicion was named Tom, but I’m not sure I follow the connection to me.”
Cam understood his anger. She would have been furious if someone had excluded her from an operation for any reason, but particularly if she was under suspicion. Trust was everything in their position. Personally, she would have been affronted and outraged, but professionally, she would have acknowledged the necessity of protecting not only the operation but, ultimately, the president. Their decisions were not personal, couldn’t be personal, and Tom knew that as much as she did. Right now he was reacting as a man whose honor had been impugned, and the only answer was to reach out to the professional in him. “Every member of the team knew you weren’t involved, but the president’s life was at stake. The right call—the only call—had to be one that guaranteed security, a hundred and ten percent. Like I said, my call.”